


soon the fog will clear

by alesford



Series: our family of choice [29]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Depression, F/F, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Implied/Referenced Past Child Abuse, References to Depression, Season 3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 15:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18803107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: Even though she knows that this, too, will pass, her dark days linger. Sadness still wraps its way around Belle's heart and mind and soul, and even if her family can't make things magically good again, they can make things better. Little by little.A follow-up tocan i be the kid for your soul to keep?.





	soon the fog will clear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vythian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vythian/gifts).



 

 

**soon the fog will clear**

_sometimes it all gets a little too much_  
_but you gotta realize that soon the fog will clear up_  
_and you don't have to be afraid, because we're all the same_  
_and we know that sometimes it all gets a little too much_  
_\- 'a little too much' by shawn mendes_

 

 

Yesterday, Alice began the arduous process of pulling Belle back into the light of day, tugging and tugging until the darkness had no choice but begin to recede. She reminded Belle that she is loved and that she is wanted. Her family, her whole family — Nicole and Waverly, Wynonna and Doc, Dolls, Jeremy, Alice — was there to remind her.

Little by little.

They help her with her monsters. They support her as she struggles to vanquish her own demons.

We are never alone when we fight our demons.

Belle wakes in her own bed, remembering her mom helping her back into Alice’s Jeep. Alice driving them back to their apartment, tucking her into bed with the weight of Belle’s grief pressing down on her features.

Belle had sleepily slurred, “I’ll be okay, Al.”

Alice had nodded, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and slipped out of the room as quietly as her steel-toed boots against wood floors would allow.

  
Today is hard, too. A little less hard than yesterday but difficult just the same.

  
She can hear Alice shuffling around their tiny apartment. The clock reads some time just after eight in the morning. The front door opens and closes, and Belle feels any energy she might have had to get out of bed today slip through her fingers like shifting sand.

She grips her IKEA duvet and pulls it over her head, trying to escape from the world for just a little longer. Just a little longer…

  
The front door opens and closes. Keys clatter in the bowl on kitchen counter where odds and ends are usually tossed.

  
Belle reluctantly pokes her head out from beneath her blankets. The clock on her phone reads a quarter after nine. Maybe Alice just went out to get breakfast instead of going to the library like she has been the last two weeks.

“Belle? Sweetie?”

She twists her eyes shut and tries to slow her heartbeat and even her breathing in the moments before the gentle knock on her bedroom door and the squeaking of its hinges as her mama pushes it open.

“Belle Haught,” Waverly says with a jab to her lump of a daughter still in bed. “I raised you. I know when you’re pretending to be asleep.”

Belle still doesn’t move. She doesn’t want to face the world, yet. Not yet.

The mattress dips beside her and she feels her mother lie down beside her. She’s quiet for a while. Much like the days when she was younger. The ones where she wanted to hide just the same and her moms would let her stay home from school, make tea, and listen to music. They would wait patiently because they knew and they understood.

Sometimes a person just has to be sad. Sometimes she has to walk through the darkness until she’s ready to see the light again. But sometimes a person needs her ass kicked and a light shined in her face.

Belle supposes she’s at that stage if Alice’s actions the evening before are any indication.

“Can we go for a drive, Belle?” her mama asks, breaking the silence after several minutes. When Belle doesn’t respond, Waverly sighs deeply in a way that Belle feels more than hears. “I know it’s hard,” Waverly murmurs. Her fingers thread through Belle’s sleep-tangled mess of blond hair. “Do you remember when I first told you about Jolene? I wanted you to understand that even though you will doubt yourself and even though you will have dark days, you will always be worthy of love. You are somebody worth loving, and your mom and I love you more than anybody or anything.”

Waverly takes a breath, her fingers stilling against Belle’s scalp. “I know it’s hard,” she whispers again. “But you aren’t alone. We are here for you; let us be here.”

Belle opens her eyes at that. She sees her mama looking at her with the same warmth as she did that first day in Nicole’s office at the station.

“Ma belle, there you are.” Waverly smiles. The crows’ feet near her eyes wrinkle with the history of so many smiles and so many laughs — despite everything that her life has been. Despite living the life of a cursed Earp.

“I can’t shake her this time,” Belle says softly. “Jolene. I can’t make her go away.”

“You aren’t alone in this, Belle. We are never alone when we fight our demons.”

Belle nods. Just the slightest of nods but it brings a more tender curve to her mama’s smile.

“Come with me for a drive?”

  
It takes effort — a lot of effort — to leave the safety of her bed. Her mama helps, making eggs and toast while Belle showers. She turns on some Etta James and hums and dances around the kitchen. She doesn’t bombard Belle with platitudes or questions.

  
She’s there in Belle’s apartment. She stays through the dark days just like she does with those as bright as a sunny summer day. She loves Belle unapologetically and unconditionally.

  
Before they leave the apartment, Waverly helps Belle into her lighter jacket. “You’re going to get tired of me saying this probably, and your mom would tell me to give you more space if she was here with us, but I am going to say it anyways and tough jelly beans.”

Belle knows what’s coming, knows the words as well as the back of her hand because her moms are good moms. They showed her love and support and family. They wore down her armor of pain and despair and etched into it instead words of safety and security and happiness.

She draws her mom into a hug and reaches for those lighter moments and memories to chase away some of the darkness.

“I know, mama,” she mumbles.

“I’m going to say it anyways, monkey. I love you. You are so much more than scars and sadness and damn those shitticket boys who refuse to see that. Damn all the Jolenes because you are wanted and you are loved. You are the best thing to ever happen to your mom and I.”

  
Belle expects Waverly to turn her Jeep in the direction of the big city and is surprised when she doesn’t.

“Where are we going?” she asks. She holds her hand against the wind, feels the resistance as she cuts through the air.

“You’ll see.”

They arrive in one of the towns a few towns over from Purgatory and park in front of an old diner with a blinking neon sign in the window.

She remembers this place from long ago. She remembers Waverly treating her to a day with just the two of them shortly after Belle started kindergarten.

  
It may or may not have been in response to Principal Arbour’s bullshit after she called her teacher a simple-minded dolt.

(That was a word that Waverly had taught her the night prior and it seems an appropriate time to test its use.)

  
The early lunch crowd has already started straggling inside the diner by the time Belle and Waverly take their seats in a booth with mint green, splitting vinyl benches.

Belle eyes the golden pie beneath the glass cloche in the countertop. “Want to share a piece of blueberry pie with me?”

“Only if that’s not the only thing you plan to eat,” Waverly counters. She has her Mom Face on, the one that is simultaneously sweet like Let me take care of you and absolutely terrifying like Do what I say or I’ll ground you until the day the sun explodes.

“Can I have a hot ham and cheese sandwich?” she orders when the waitress comes over.

“Chips or fries?”

“Fries, please.”

Waverly orders a salad and the slice of pie as promised.

“We didn’t drive out here just for pie, did we?” Belle questions. She can already feel the fatigue of the day trying to burrow into her bones. The world is still too loud and too much but it’s quieter out here in a town that isn’t home with people who aren’t people for whom she feels she needs to save face.

“I thought we could go to that used book shop down the street.”

As a child, books provided an easy escape. She could go to Narnia or Hogwarts — any place an author’s mind could take her, really. And in those places there were friends and family that looked out for one another. Together, they could battle the darkest of evils and usually there was a happily ever after.

As a child, she was a voracious reader. As an adult, she is still her mama’s daughter.

So they finish their pie and pay the waitress and make their way down sidewalks that have seen better days.

A bell chimes overhead as Belle opens the door. A fluffy grey cat meows and weaves his way between their legs.

“Don’t mind Finnegan!” they hear from somewhere buried deep in the stacks.

Books line shelves from floor to ceiling. There are stacks haphazardly places at the ends of aisles and near the furniture scattered here and there throughout the shop.

Belle inhales the scent of old books and smiles without too much effort.

  
Today doesn’t have to be so hard.

  
She and Waverly go their separate ways, weaving through stories of knights and dragons and aliens and lovers.

When she was a little girl, terrified of her own shadow along with everything else in the world, Waverly brought her here. She gave Belle the space to explore the shop and the books within it.

She had, to Belle’s surprise, accepted all six books that she had found and placed them on the counter to purchase. Belle had only meant to ask Waverly for her help picking just one of them.

Today isn’t so different from that day. A girl with a tragic past, learning to love herself again, and beginning to understand that the world doesn’t have to be so drab.

It’s quiet and peaceful. Characters in books don’t expect anything of her. They can’t hit you or yell at you or harm you in any way.

Books were her salvation and her solace. She’s always had this in common with Waverly.

It’s special, then, being here with her mama. Special like it was before. Meaningful because her mama knows and her mama understands. After all, she had her Jolene, too.

They meander the shop for hours. Reading this book or that, curled up in an old leather armchair or lounging across a blue velvet chaise. Running fingers across cracked spines and loved covers. Feeding Finnegan treats from the bowls scattered throughout the store.

It’s more than sequestering herself away in her bedroom. But it’s easier than facing a real and loud and bright world. Baby steps.

  
Little by little.

  
They make the drive back to Purgatory. Belle draws her legs beneath her in the passenger seat and flicks eagerly through an old copy of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. Waverly sings softly with whatever top one hundred is playing on the radio.

Nicole meets them for ice cream at Sandy’s just before the ice cream parlor closes. Her clip-on tie is gone and the top two buttons of her shirt undone. She looks exhausted but more than pleased to see them.

“My two best girls.” She grins and gives Belle’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. The girl is already chipmunk-cheeks deep into her fully loaded sundae.

Waverly offers her wife the waffle cone with double chocolate chunk. “We figured we should get you something before Sandy kicks us out.”

Nicole takes the preferred treat, leaning forward to kiss her wife. “I knew I liked you for a reason,” she hums against her lips.

The lights inside the shop dim at that moment and Sandy shouts from the back, “We’re closing!”

Belle is already leaning against the door, propping it open into the night with stars overhead and the street lamps just flickering on.

“How was today?” her mom asks.

Belle swallows the spoonful of sundae she just shoveled into her mouth. She’s bone-tired, drained physically, mentally, and emotionally. She’s ready to go home and fall into bed and sleep for hours — but maybe not days. She thinks she might be beyond days.

Pie. Books. Ice cream. Her moms here with her.

“It was good,” she breathes. Breathes. She feels a little lighter, a little brighter. There’s still a weighted sadness bearing down on her but it’s lessened a bit. Little by little. Her moms help her. So does Alice and the rest of their weird little family.

“I’m glad. I’m sorry I couldn’t join you today.”

Waverly pokes Nicole in her side. “Sometimes I want to spend a day with my daughter without my wife. Mama-daughter day.”

Nicole chuckles and pulls her close, pressing a kiss to the top of Waverly’s head. “I know, Waves.”

Belle watches them and the love that flows from their hearts, surrounds them, seemingly never ending even when times are difficult.

“C’mere, monkey.” Nicole separates from Waverly, leaving a space between them that Belle fills pretty perfectly. She feels the support of her moms’ hands on her back. Feels that same love and security and family that grounds her, that shines light in the darkness when she needs it.

“Thank you for today,” she mumbles into her ice cream.

“We love you to the moon and the stars and beyond, Belle.”

Sandwiches between her mama and her mom, she looks from one to the other and feels like a small child again when she asks, “Always and forever?”

“Forever and always.”

Little by little. One step at a time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long while, I know. I am sorry to have disappeared as I did. The motivation to write was superseded by falling in love and being an awful, sappy gay.
> 
> I can't promise to update 'our family of choice' or any of my other stories any time soon after this, but I wanted to try to give you all something.


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